The Title Has Escaped Me
by JohnPaulGeorgeandRingo
Summary: Rogue, Wolverine, beer, Christmas cheer, Rogan undertones, you get the idea. One-shot, craziness, you still get the idea, right?


**Oh no, I was looking forward to the next X-Men film but Rogue's tiny scene has been cut! She's no longer part of the story, which saddens me. So, I'm here to spread my craziness because that's all I feel like doing. It's good to be back. I should have been finishing a letter to a Yank, but I was distracted by this. I don't really know what to tell you about this one-shot. I'll warn you now though; it's silly, stupid and all things in between. Would anybody like to welcome me back? **

* * *

Rogue had been demoted. Demoted! Her promotion was running away with a cracker-munching, ball-eating, warthog-snorting, flat chested cow's udder who was dressed as a walking lady garden. She _hated _her, she hated everybody! Yes, Rogue hated everybody in the whole, entire world. Hatred was everywhere in this room. Everywhere! Hatred and hate were hand-in-hand hating each other with hateful looks but that was okay. That was fine. She was fine! Everything was fine, especially the bottle of beer in her hand.

"You're my only friend now, bottle of beer," Rogue muttered, slumping further into the creased and crumpled duvet. "I'm sorry I don't remember your name but I didn't buy you, I 'borrowed' you, but that's okay because everything is still fine. It's fine, fine, fine." She grit her teeth until her jaw ached. "Everything is fine!"

The bedroom door opened and she turned her moody gaze to the figure looking at her. "Didn't you hear? I'm fine," she said, nodding her head at her words. "I'm fine, we're all fine, so go away and be fine and okay somewhere else because I don't want to talk about how fine I really am."

The figure belonged to Wolverine. His brow furrowed and he walked in, shutting the door behind him. "Yeah, you sound it," he grunted, closing the distance between his ass and the duffle bag on the other side of the room.

Rogue sighed until her mouth was dry and made her drink yet more beer. "Why don't you ever listen to me?" she asked him. "I've known you for a long time now and you never listen. You never, ever, ever listen, Logan." She followed him with her eyes because her body didn't want to move unless she needed more beer. "Why are you in my room? Go away. I'm fine and I'm not sharing my beer."

He raised an eyebrow and hunched over, rifling through the bag. "This is _my_ beer, _my_ bag and _my _room, Rogue."

She rolled her eyes and sunk the last of the amber liquid in the bottle. "I decided you needed to start sharing."

Logan snorted, snagging two beers and standing up. "It's times like these I regret making a certain promise," he said with a low growl. "Do you want another or you close to drowning already?"

"Nobody drowns on a bed at Christmas," she scoffed, stuffing the empty bottle into the bedside drawer. "But I want another beer and then another and another and another and twenty-eight more."

"How about we work on these two and see how you feel," he answered, dropping onto the bed beside her and stretching out. He snapped the caps of the beers and handed her one. "Good to see you're not hanging out in the closet spying this time, too."

Rogue slapped his arm with her closed fist. It wasn't really a slap, but she liked to think it was. After all, she didn't want to hurt her friend who had tonnes of beer. "I wasn't spying on you," she huffed, frowning at his smirk. "I didn't know you were going to drag that pretty supply teacher in here either. You were like a caveman, Logan. I blushed so much; I nearly set fire to my clothes!"

"Well, that would have made two naked women in my room," he smirked, showing all his teeth and gulping down his beer. "You made a real show of yourself, Darlin'."

"I've never been so embarrassed in my life," she snapped, blushing as she glanced in the direction of the closet. "There I was, playing hide-and-seek, and you come in grinning and stripping and being dirty with that teacher."

He grunted at the memory, his smirk growing. "Never took you for a pervert."

"I'm not a pervert!" she argued, sitting up in a huff. "I told you I was playing hide-and-seek with the younger students and Kitty damn Pryde. Your room was the only place I could hide without being found, Logan. If they didn't find me, I'd win the game and I just had to win."

"Yeah, because you were playing against Pryde," he snorted, looking at her. "You need to start acting your age, Darlin'. You're close to pushing forty now."

"Forty?!" she hissed, hitting his shoulder. "I've only just turned thirty! If you're not careful, I'll bury you in a shallow grave under the sandpit and make everybody's Christmas, Wolverine. You know you scare all the students and they'd love to build sandcastles on your head and stick mini flags up your nose!"

"Stop shouting," he growled, scowling at her. "You're pissing off my senses, and anyway, howling like that will only give you more goddamn wrinkles."

Rogue growled back and poked him in the ribs. "I don't have wrinkles!" she cried, poking him again and again. "Stop ruining my Christmas. All I want to do is drink, sleep, puke and drink again."

"What's all this talk of the holidays," he grumbled, pushing her hand away. "Who said it was Christmas?"

"The calendar and a million billion religious people," she stated, staring at him. "It's Christmas Eve, Logan. Didn't you notice all the decorations hanging up? There's a Christmas tree in most of the rooms downstairs."

He eyed her for a long minute or two. "I wondered why Storm was wearing a sweater made out of tinsel and bells."

She sighed and slumped even further into the bed. "I hate the holidays. This year, I had everything planned and it was perfect. I helped Storm write the Christmas play. It was really, really perfect. I was going to be Mrs Santa the Snail Killer, and Bobby was playing Santa, Storm was the narrator and Kitty was the snail."

Logan looked at her, confused. "Where do the snails come in to it?"

"Me and Storm wrote the play when we were eating lunch in a French restaurant," she admitted solemnly. "We drank lots of champagne because it was fun. But it was my idea for Kitty to play the snail that was trying to steal Christmas away from all the girls and boys in the world."

"Darlin', that sounds like the biggest pile of shit I've ever heard," he told her truthfully.

Her eyes glazed over with hurt. "It was going to be amazing and I even gave you a part," she pointed out. "You were Scrooge. I put the script under your bathroom door while you were in there. I even put a note on it but you never got back to me."

He made a noise of understanding and drank the last of his beer. "Yeah, I never read it."

"What did you do with my script, Logan?" she asked, beginning to glare. "You're keeping something from me; I know you are, you've got that proud look in your ugly eyes."

"Proud?" he said, slipping a cigar between his lips. "Nah, I wasn't proud. I ran out of toilet paper and you helped me out by stuffing some under the door. It weren't that comfortable, but it did its job."

Rogue's jaw dropped and the beer she'd had in her mouth dribbled on to her shirt. "I, I just, you're completely… And I'm, I hate you, Wolverine." She jabbed him in the ribs again. "You knew what that paper was, you knew it was Christmas and you know I've been kicked out the play and replaced by Kitty! That's why you're here, you're hiding because you don't want to go on stage and read the Happy Holidays poem."

He heaved a heavy sigh. "Do you care Pryde's lapping up the attention on stage?"

"Yes!" she said, jumping up and balancing drunkenly on the bed. "I wrote that play, Logan. She stole my boyfriend, she steals all my ideas, she whores herself around with her flat fucking chest and do you know what?" She stood between Logan's legs and frowned down at him. "All I have left is you. Everybody acts like I'm invisible, but you don't! Nobody notices me when I talk or when I come on a mission or when I teach. Even when there was that story on Fox News about us and everybody was saying the X-Men needed to be deported to the moon, nobody mentioned me. It's like I don't exist!"

Logan shook his head. "You make it sound like your name's never been in the public eye. What about the website we had to have shut down?"

Rogue pulled a face. "You promised you wouldn't talk about it ever again," she reminded him. "And you know those naked photos weren't me, they just stuck my head on all those elephant hips and giant tits." She jumped on the foot of the bed, bouncing slightly and pushing herself to her feet. "Thanks for the pep-talk, you've helped."

"What pep-talk?" he said, watching her stagger to the door. "Where the hell are you going, Marie?"

"Don't call me Marie," she answered, throwing the door open, deep in her thoughts. "Oh and, Logan, I think I'm ready to go to the play now. You know the play? Yes, _that_ play, the snail play. The play they're playing on stage right now. I don't want to be ignored any more. It's not fair; I've got bigger breasts than Kitty, so I shouldn't be ignored." She disappeared out the door, marching with her head held high and her bladder doing summersaults.

"Shit," Logan grunted, tossing his bottle in the trashcan. He stalked after her, puffing on his cigar and once again cursing that time on the train when he made the promise. What the hell had he been thinking?

* * *

'Whoa, my head is spinning,' Rogue thought, creeping into the dance hall that was now dubbed Winter Wonderland. It was stuffed full of students, their families and lots of other people she didn't know. It was dark, too, so she could zig-zag through the trees and tinsel and oh, that wasn't supposed to be screaming on the floor, was it?

Many different heads turned round and people tutted, pointed at her and complained to each other because she'd knocked a very large Christmas tree over. And now Santa was pinned under the tree, whining about the pine needles digging into parts that made the elves want to cry.

"It's okay, everything is okay," Rogue called out, climbing the steps to the stage with great difficultly. "He's my ex-boyfriend. Don't worry, nobody will miss his carrot. If it snaps off or the pine needles eat it, no angels will cry, they will laugh and giggle instead."

She stood there, on the stage, trying to keep still but stepping from side to side because she really needed to pee and she was _really _drunk. "I, I'm going to make a speech. I like speeches. Speeches are special, especially on Christmas Eve."

Logan entered the hall and lit another cigar. He half wondered why Ice Dick was trying to get friendly with a Christmas tree, but he'd always thought the boy had issues anyway. The feral's eyes were hardened and steady, watching the kid who was no longer a kid making a druken ass out of herself in front of a bunch of people that ranged from reporters to senators with deep pockets. He wished she'd learn to stay away from his stash of booze. That beer was loaded with enough liquor to sink his liver, let alone hers. He would have to tell her he'd spiked it with three different brands of whisky. Though, that could probably wait until tomorrow. He would be spending the night holding her hair away from her face as she puked up the rest of her speech.

Rogue had lost her thoughts. She was standing there, legs crossed and trying to stay upright. "All I want to say are things that need saying because I want to say him, I mean _them_. I don't have any hims in my life because Mrs Clause has a bigger bed than me. Wait, is 'hims' even a word? Yes, I think that sounds okay and fine and even more okay. Oh God, I think I'm going to be sick." Her face began to turn a slight shade of green and it wasn't only because Kitty had rushed on stage with a trashcan and an angry look.

"Oh, here she comes!" Rogue called out. "Don't let her near your Christmas puddings or she'll stick them in her training bra and pretend she's had a boob-job!" She swung around, accidently clipping Shadowcat with her arms.

The younger woman squeaked, falling off the stage and phasing through the floor. Only Wolverine heard the case of champagne cushion her fall when she landed in the basement.

There were mutterings and shocked gasps in the audience. Who was this woman rambling and destroying the Christmas cheer? The reporters snatched their pens out their pockets and one called out, waving at her. "Which X-Men are you?"

Rogue's eyes travelled across the crowd until she spotted Logan. It took her a while because the spotlight was trying to blind her. "I'm Marie," she said, smiling. "I used to be Rogue. I don't need the X-Men any more, though. All I need is Wolverine's bed and for him to promise not to wipe his ass on my scent again." She giggled, her head swam and when she fell, Logan was there, catching her. "This is a cheap, corny and stupid ending to a Christmas story. People are going to call this really, _really_ crazy."

"Yeah, I agree with you there, Darlin'," he muttered, scooping her into his arms and carrying her down the steps. "Maybe you should lay off the booze and think about changing your name. By tomorrow, our 'relationship' is going to be all over the papers."

"Shh," Rogue murmured, her head lolling against his shoulder. "I don't love you; I just like your bed and your big nuts."

Wolverine smirked as he walked by the last of the reporters. He had never been a fan of Christmas, but he was in for an interesting day tomorrow. His name would be forever linked to the bag of peanuts he kept in on his bedside table. Others would think Rogue was handing him one hell of a compliment instead. His smirk only grew as she pleaded with him to take her to his bed. She was going to do nothing but sleep, though the reporters didn't need to know that.

The professor's Christmas surprise for his important guests had been destroyed, Storm was asking for all the help she could get because Bobby was stuck under a ten foot tree and Kitty was pouting over the comments about her chest.

Rogue, though, was feeling pleased with herself. She was certain everybody would know her name now. How could anybody forget her after a performance like that? She burped, she sighed, she closed her eyes and as she wondered if anybody in America had ever eaten a Christmas pudding, she fell asleep with a proud smile on her face. Not even the thought of eating Logan's large nuts could keep her awake.

* * *

**PS. Three cheers for the Christmas craziness. I also think I have HUGE issues. ;-)**


End file.
